


The Beauty of Gray

by Max_Mercury773



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Piece?, Gen, Kakashi Taking the Wrong Messages From Literature, Sad Kakashi, someone help him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22217362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Max_Mercury773/pseuds/Max_Mercury773
Summary: Some kinds of sadness are addictive. Kakashi hardly knew how to live without his.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 31





	The Beauty of Gray

**Author's Note:**

> this is what happens when you listen to too many ballads

A vicious gray lingered under his skin.

It nestled there in between muscle and tendon, branching out into the safety of his veins. It’d been brought to life during the dregs of a typhoon six years ago and it’d be revived again today over lunch. In the heart of training ground three, stood on a treetop, Kakashi relished the breeze on his cheeks. Churning clouds bled purples, blues, and whites together; the village would be doused by noon. Kakashi made his way down in two jumps. Weaving in between trees and hopping over rocks, he walked the length of the creek, at something of a loss. He’d concocted a handful of reasonable excuses.

There was a rotten smell from his next-door neighbor, and he’d been roped into an investigation.

He’d scarfed down a tub of shrimp he’d bought from the corner store and spent the last ten hours hugging the toilet.

A nine-fingered soothsayer sat on a trash can in the back alley he took as a shortcut foretold unspeakable horrors if he met either of them today.

Kakashi gnawed on the inside of his cheek. As tasty as the food at Kakurega was, he found the idea of chewing glass more appealing than sitting down with his team for a “mandatory team bonding” lunch. Whipping out his pocket notebook, he flipped through some pages, scribbled down “accidentally ate glass?” in his excuses list, and tucked it away. He didn’t feel like faking today. A collection of little shrines bordered the rocky banks of the creek. He found more at the base of the old man katsura tree, so nicknamed because of the tree’s topless half.

Moss covered the stone houses by the creek, the bases slick and shiny from last night’s rain.

A stone monkey crouched with its paw on what he guessed to be a headless fox.

The village made new shrines each year in honor of those who died in Madara’s assault. Kakashi’s favorite play, _The Tragedy of Kenshin Uzumaki_ , took inspiration from that time period. To non-shinobi, chakraless authors, Uzumaki rhymed with tragedy and any poetic work worth its salt had an Uzumaki if they weren’t the main character. _The Tragedy of Kenshin Uzumaki_ boiled down to a “defeat the evil empire” epic fantasy quest where Kakashi most related to the villain, Empress Rei. He always imagined the climax of the play happening in a place like this with the ghosts of the damned silently watching the final battle.

The shrines by the tree sheltered porcelain figurines.

A red and white owl perched atop one, a sleeping deer inside another, and a smirking komainu pair with each.

Knees cracking as he stood, he continued on his way. Acting, eliminating tells and the like, was a part of the shinobi curriculum. It took a lot out of him, calculating every little gesture, but he’d gotten good at faking. His greatest tools being his mask and the collection of self-help books he kept in a secret compartment in his bathroom wall.

Most ninja hid their undesirables in the floorboards, but Kakashi wasn’t most ninja. Minato was the real problem. He was a bloodhound, sniffing out every inconsistency even if he didn’t call him out on it. His sensei had a radar for those kinds of things, could tell from what little face he showed. Rin knew by his voice. Whenever she noticed, her lips set tight and her brows furrowed, culminating in an expression projecting so much worry and heartbreak it nearly gave him an ulcer each time he saw it.

Kakashi followed the creek until he reached a clearing and sighed at the sound of distant thunder. In a thicket of weeping katsura, dangling samaras, and painted ferns,

Sharingan Kakashi dropped onto a mossy stone. He filled his silence with scraping metal. Pulling everything he needed from a scroll, Kakashi sharpened his tools by a shallow spring. It was like the detached, numbing gray had grasped a string inside him and stretched it taut as a bowstring. It’d snap if he wasn’t careful. This was a given for him during the summer though and would pass with typhoon season.

Waterstone in his lap, Kakashi examined his handiwork, running a finger along the flat of the blade as he turned it over. It was a standard issue kunai. Reliable in close quarters, couldn’t get sharp for shit, best used as a buffer until you could switch to something more stylized. He’d done what he could. Kakashi unfastened his arm guard and rolled up his sleeve to test its edge.

It gave him a good shave. The dark metal caught the light and gleamed; he imagined it thanking him for returning it to peak condition. It sounded like his mother. Kakashi murmured a raggedy, “You’re welcome.” A sharp knife was a safe knife. Nothing killed faster than a dull knife. So, once all his weapons could shave the hair off a flea, he stood then worked through simple stretches and warmup katas.

You could tell a lot about a person from their combat preferences.

Like most kunoichi her age, Rin’s taijutsu aimed for quick knockouts, evasive tactics, and using the opponent’s momentum against them. Her tools were standard, nothing special. She loved throwing throat punches during sparring. She dabbled in poisons, kept double doses of the antidotes. There was a children’s story he heard all the time that reminded him of her. In the background of talking animals preaching kindness and good eating habits, an unruly shrine maiden played pranks on the other girls and avoided punishment by the skin of her teeth. Rin wasn’t half as demure as she pretended. And nobody, not even Minato, seemed to notice.

Taking off his sandals and rolling up his pants, he stepped into the spring to work on his water jutsu. To properly execute a water jutsu, a degree of tranquility and the intention of movement were required. He still didn’t know what that meant. Performing them kind of felt like blowing spit bubbles but with your whole body. Once you form the hand sign, the bubble pops. A perfect clone pulled itself out of the spring.

A perfect clone pulled itself out of the spring.

Kakashi poked it, grimacing at its jelly like texture. When he circled it, he noticed he could see the trees through its hair. Not enough chakra. He experimented pouring different chakra levels into it, accidentally exploded it. Kakashi tried again. Minato claimed “connections outside the workplace” were important, so he created “team bonding days” for them to learn more about one another.

Their trio had been so dysfunctional, as much as Kakashi complained, he understood why they had them. But Kakashi had learned all he needed to about his team. Nohara Rin believed in a thousand beautiful things. A natural optimist, for her, to not search out and appreciate the good things was a crime against nature. It drove him up a wall.

To him, Namikaze Minato was alien and incomprehensible. Like a curious god just barely clinging onto his human disguise. An ornament in the mind of every ninja, he existed and endured, unwavering. He was like a painting. Something in the back you never take the time to look at because the weight of someone like him existing in the shinobi world would be enough to shatter anyone’s motivation. He was the one to beat and he was the one to adore.

Rumor said he’d be Hokage soon.

The clone melted.

Obito was dead.

They knew better than to address it in public, but Kakashi couldn’t risk the question. “What’s wrong?” His own personal slur. It’d be easier not to go. When it came to people, Kakashi liked the easy way, took it every chance he got.

He found himself opening the door to the café regardless. Kakurega Café stood on the corner of fifteenth street in the heart of the January district.

Minato, filling out a stack of overdue mission reports, scarfed down a platter of kuzumochi, a basket of tiny sandwiches, and two cups of black tea.

Rin sipped strawberry lemonade and entertained the Maki siblings whose parents owned the place. Lunch lasted half an hour.

Minato left first, apologized for his busyness.

Rin hugged him goodbye.

Kakashi tried not to flinch away from her.

He loved her, of course, but not the way she loved him, the way Obito had loved her. Theirs was fearless, all-encompassing, fickle, romantic. Having sat across the table from her, watching her laugh – it’d felt like years since – Kakashi confirmed it. He’d die for her. Rin’s hug felt like a fireplace. And then she left too.

Kakashi returned to his training. After a forty-minute shuffle to the village outskirts, Kakashi creaked open the gate to training ground 4-C. The Flathead Mountains resembled a drunken engineer’s – in the middle of a crack induced psychosis – version of a staircase. The levels jutted out in random intervals and lengths. 4-C recalled Earth Country with rocky spires, a canyon, and mountain ranges. As far as he knew, these were the only mountains in all of Fire Country.

He rented the space for three hours and while his wallet may be crying, the privacy was worth it. Five landing strategies dashed through his head by the time he broke into a sprint and jumped off the red clay cliff.

A pleasant heaviness thudded all the way to his bones as Kakashi settled on earth style. His chakra thrummed to life. He blurred through hand signs, slicked up his makeshift ramp with a water jutsu, and surfer slid the mud slick down to the ground. Thunder rumbled. Three earth clones popped into existence, waved hello, and got to work trying to smash his face in. After they’d been reduced them to rubble, he dragged his hand along the cliff face. When he found a hand hold and plotted his path, Kakashi started to climb.

Color bled away the further up he went. Stomach dropping, mouth drying, jaw clenching, the events at Kakurega Café caught up to him. Because when you’re surrounded by laughter and warmth, the sudden absence of those things become almost unbearable.

When he reached the top of the cliff, he backflipped onto the ramp and started over again. An aching cold bit down to the bone, the color of storm clouds, heavy as a bloody knife, nameless. He imagined telling them, what he’d say, what she’d say.

Rin would try to exorcise it from him, because that was her way, not knowing he’d collapse without it. Gray was his foundation, his scaffolding. Lightning crashed. Thunder boomed. Worse yet, it was strong – strong as him, stronger than his father. He heaved himself up over the cliff’s edge for the sixth time. Ignoring his chaffed hands, he jumped again, reveled in the free fall too long, almost cracked his head open on a piece of the cliff.

Kakashi climbed again with conviction.

He wouldn’t infect them.

Some kinds of sadness were good, after all. He’d read it in a book he couldn’t remember the name of. It was good and pure and familiar and his, Kakashi’s gray, the only thing he’d had all his life, the final gift from the two people who should’ve loved him enough to live a little longer. Thunder crashed. Not a drop of rain. An electrical storm.

He pulled his knees up to his chest, pushed up his headband to let Obito watch. He marveled at things like this and sometimes he awed so hard tears would fall. Lightning cracked in a blinding flare. Empress Rei, lead antagonist of The Tragedy of Kenshin Uzumaki, asked in the denouement, “Can euphoria be found at the end of a lightning bolt?” It couldn’t, he’d tried.

All lightning gave was survival. It didn’t gift sparks upon touch, a heavenly sigh, electrifying love or any of her other wishful, poetic, nonsense ramblings. It wouldn’t cure her emptiness. He should be honest with himself.

How disgusting did it feel to meet the gaze of someone he didn’t recognize in the mirror? He should be honest.

He couldn’t go on like this. How long? He was alone in this. How long? How long? How long? How sad. To hate oneself this much.

Kakashi mouthed his play word for word.

"The Empress' face twisted into contentment. She grinned, absolutely gleeful, at the man who’d crumbled her kingdom and said, 'The beauty of gray lies in its inherent cruelty. For those who have known gray, euphoria arrives unyielding. This is my gift to you, Kenshin.'"

Rei forced the hero’s victory Pyrrhic. While he succeeded in enforcing his moral absolutism upon the kingdom, he had lost all he held dear. Rei brought Kenshin into her world as punishment for toppling her only solace. Kakashi respected her for it. To her, gray was a numbing, persistent melancholy.

The hero who lived in black and white had been dumped into gray and would have to spend forever trying to find a solution to her problem, his same problem.

Kakashi didn't have the heart to wait for Kenshin's answer.

And so with the storm glaring down as his witness, Kakashi swore to find contentment again.


End file.
